By Jude Njoku

The Lagos State government generated about 3.8 billion from the Land Use Charge last year.

The Commissioner for Finance, Mr Adetokunbo Abiru who disclosed this at the ministerial press briefing to mark the first year of Governor Babatunde Fasola’s second term in office, explained that figures released by the Lands Records Company Nigeria Limited, the company charged with administering the Land Use Charge collection, showed the proceeds from the unified property tax increased from N250 million in 2008 to N3.8 billion in 2011.

Abiru disclosed further that in a bid to increase the level of compliance and expected revenue from the Land Use Charge, focus has shifted from property enumeration to comprehensive billing of all enumerated properties.

“The adoption of this approach positively reflected on the revenue,” he said adding that out of the total of 637,569 properties so far enumerated, 583,458 have been billed. This represents about 91 percent of the enumerated properties.

“The outstanding balance of 26,819 billable records which mainly are raw records yet to be processed and exempted properties will be processed through enforcement which will include prosecution for non-compliance, if necessary.

Besides, a total of 560,000 demand notices were delivered across the 20 local government areas,” Mr Abiru said.
The commissioner was elated because some of the teething problems encountered on the scheme have subsided and people are now paying the charges voluntarily.

The controversial Land Use Charge which has been widely criticized by Estate Surveyors and Valuers and other built environment professionals because the parameters used in determining the charges to be paid were arbitrarily decided by the Ministry, merged the Tenement Rate, Development Charges, Ground Rent and Neighbourhood Improvement Rent into one single tax.

Speaking on the financial strategy adopted by the Fashola administration, Mr. Abiru said the government will maintain a funding preference for capital expenditure.

His words: “ The present administration is resolute in its stride to maintain financial strategy which is premised on sustaining funding priorities more to capital projects than overhead expenditure in the staunch belief that economic growth is better accelerated by adequate funding of physical and ensuring qualitative capital projects in line with international best practices”. He maintained that the state government will only borrow money to finance capital projects.